The Strange Cabin on Catamount Island Part 10

"That sounds good to me, Max," remarked Owen, nodding his head attentively.

Toby was here heard to make a jumble of sounds, being still too excited to get his vocal cords in decent working order. He kept pointing at a nail that had been driven into the tent pole.

Now, strange to say, Steve was really the quickest to understand what the stammering boy meant, when he became twisted up in this way.

"He says his sweater is gone, the dark-blue one that his guardian, Mr.

Jackson, gave him just a week ago on his birthday. And he left it hanging there on that old nail," was Steve's explanation of the strange jumble of sounds Toby was giving forth.

"And that's true every word of it," put in Max at that moment; "for just as I turned to quit this tent, as we were going off, that same sweater fell down off the nail. I stopped long enough to hang it up again. So if it's gone, the thief took a notion he could make good use of it."

Toby remained silent with indignation for a long time; and in his case this was not a mere figure of speech either, but a grim reality, for he was tongue-tied.

"Let Max hunt around, and see if there are any tracks," said Owen.

"That's the ticket!" added Bandy-legs; and both the others nodded their heads in immediate approval of the scheme.

Whenever it came down to a showing of woods lore, Max was the one always designated to handle the matter. His chums believed him capable of discovering almost anything going, if only a few faint tracks had been left behind.

Nothing loth, Max started in to look; but he knew in the beginning that the task would be a difficult one, and the results not at all equal to the exertion put forth.

Still he did find several places where a footprint, not at all like any made by their own shoes, seemed to tell where the intruder had stepped, in making his rapid rounds of the camp.

"There was only one thief, boys," he announced, after he had looked carefully.

"Man or boy, do you think, Max?" asked Owen.

"A man; and I should say a pretty hefty one, too," replied the other, with conviction in his voice.

"Why, how c'n you tell that, Max, without ever once gettin' sight of the feller?" demanded the astonished Bandy-legs.

"Oh, shucks, how dense some people are!" put in Steve, scornfully. "Why, stands to reason, don't it, that a big man'd wear shoes ever so much longer than a little man, or a kid? Well, look at that print Max is pointing to right now! Don't think any Shafter, Toots or Beggs made that, do you?"

"Gos.h.!.+" exclaimed Bandy-legs, staring; "he must 'a' been a giant, sure.

I never did see a bigger shoe print, honest now. And, boys, it ain't the nicest thing going to know that monster is right here, marooned on this island with us."

"Now what makes you say that, Bandy-legs?" demanded Steve. "How d'ye know but what he come across from the mainland?"

"Why," the other hastened to say, as though proud of having his opinion asked, "he'd have to swim, then, because Max here said there wasn't a sign of a boat landin' anywhere along the sh.o.r.e. Fact is, the island is so rough that boats would find it pretty hard to land anywhere, but on this little beach right at the foot, and made just for such a thing. And then again, Steve, don't you forget about that queer old cabin, now. He lives there, sure as you're born!"

"Whew, six more nights!"

That was Toby Jucklin finally getting his breath; and as there was no telling when he would talk steadily, or stammer, none of his campmates thought it at all strange to hear him say these words calmly and evenly.

Toby had been wrestling with those miserable vocal cords of his for so long a time that he now had them under control for a short period at least.

"Can we stand it, fellows?" asked Owen, more to find out how the others felt than because his faith was becoming wobbly.

"Sixty, if you said the word!" declared the impulsive Steve, grimly; "why, after accepting that dare, a dozen critters like this one we haven't ever seen yet couldn't frighten _me_ away from Catamount Island; no siree, bob!"

Max looked admiringly, also affectionately at the speaker. If there was one trait he liked about Steve, it was his indomitable pluck. The boy was absolutely afraid of nothing that walked, flew, or crawled. He was as bold as a lion, but very indiscreet. He often reminded Max of a small terrier attacking a big St. Bernard, and snapping viciously all the while. Yes, Steve was a bundle of nerves, and not to be daunted.

"I honestly believe you would stick it out if it took all summer, Steve," he remarked, laying a hand on the other's arm.

"Excuse me, then," declared Bandy-legs. "This thing wears on my nerves like everything. I'll soon be skin and bones if it keeps up. Somebody tell me what that big thief wanted with me last night, when he grabbed my leg, and started to haul me out of the tent? That's what bothers me.

He seems to've got a spite against me in particular. I bet you he's got his wicked eye on me, right at this blessed minute."

"Oh, p'r'aps he thought it was a ham he grabbed hold of," remarked Steve, flippantly, as he pointed to Bandy-legs' rather plump lower limbs, of which he was rather vain, in spite of their shortness.

But for once Bandy-legs did not laugh at a joke that was on himself. The matter appeared too serious for trifling. How could he ever go to sleep peacefully when expecting to be aroused suddenly by a terrible tug, and feel himself being dragged along the ground, just as though seized by a striped tiger of the East Indian jungle?

"I see there's only one way to be on the safe side," he was muttering disconsolately; "I've just got to come to tying myself to the tent pole every night Then if he drags me off, down comes the old tent; and I guess the rest of you'll sit up and take notice at that."

"You might s.h.i.+n out for home, Bandy-legs?" suggested Steve, just to test the sticking quality of the other.

"But I won't, all the same," flashed Bandy-legs, with a determined shake of his head. "If the rest of yer c'n stand havin' that sort of business goin' on, reckon I ought to hold out. But I wish now I'd brought a gun along. Then mebbe he'd let me alone, or take a feller of his size."

"Come along, boys, let's get things in s.h.i.+pshape again, and see just what's gone!" called out Max, who believed in looking things squarely in the face, and then making the best out of a bad bargain.

So the campers started with a vim to put things as they were before the visit of the unknown forager, who seemed destined to occupy Catamount Island with them during the balance of their stay.

CHAPTER IX.

WATCHED FROM THE Sh.o.r.e.

The day pa.s.sed slowly.

Somehow no one seemed very anxious to stray very far away from the camp.

For one thing it was out of the hunting season; and on this account the presence of many partridges on the island could not lure Max. They had stirred up quite a number while making that little hike toward the upper end of the place; and every time a bird was flushed, going off with a sudden roar of wings, Bandy-legs had weakened; so that by the time they got back home again he felt as though he had been through a spell of sickness.

And then to have that new sensation sprung upon them, and find that an unknown prowler had paid them a visit in their absence, was, as Bandy-legs expressed it, "too, too much."

But because the boys lounged around camp was no reason why they were not enjoying themselves hugely. Why, even Bandy-legs tried to forget all the dreadful nights ahead of them still, six in a row, and find some source of amus.e.m.e.nt.

Each fellow seemed, as the afternoon glided along, to just naturally gravitate toward the kind of pleasure that interested him most.

Max and Owen were examining some small animal tracks every little while, which the latter would find along the edge of the water; and as his knowledge of such things lay in the form of book learning, while his cousin had had considerable experience in a practical way, he invariably, after puzzling his head awhile, softly called to Max, who willingly joined him.

Now it was a muskrat that had wandered along the edge of the river, looking no doubt for a fresh sh.e.l.lfish for his supper. Then again, Max proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that a racc.o.o.n had crept up to the edge of the water at a place where an old log thrust out. Here he could lie flat, and fish with his paw for a stray small ba.s.s that happened to pa.s.s too close to the sh.o.r.e for its safety.

The third set of tracks, differing materially from both of the others, Max p.r.o.nounced the trail of a sly mink; which, with the fisher, is perhaps the boldest and most destructive enemy of the brook trout known.

While these two were amusing themselves in this way, and Owen making notes in his little book all the while, Steve was using the rod and line to some advantage. Perched on the end of another convenient trunk of a fallen tree that projected out over the end of the bank, he managed to secure quite a delightful mess of ba.s.s from the pa.s.sing river--"taking toll," Steve called it.

Toby Jucklin seemed to find his greatest pleasure in taking cat naps. He complained of losing a heap of sleep on the preceding night; and as there was no telling what the second might bring forth, he believed in taking time by the forelock, as he called it.

And Bandy-legs, well, he was sitting there for a long time, working industriously with a pad of paper and a lead pencil; and seemed to be so wrapped up in whatever he was doing that he did not notice Max silently approach, bend down, and secure one of the sheets of paper he had already filled with his crabbed writing.